


Gray is Not a Color I Wear Well

by CheekyBrunette



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Anxiety, Bulimia, Canon Compliant, M/M, Pre-Slash, Self-Induced Vomiting, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, set during season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-27 00:10:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8379841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CheekyBrunette/pseuds/CheekyBrunette
Summary: There's a difference between making yourself sick and making yourself throw up.





	1. Development

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this because the last time I checked (which was at least a year ago, so things have probably changed) but there wasn't a fic that really dealt with Hinata throwing up. Which is weird to me, simply because he does it so often? 
> 
> So I thought that the fandom needed a fic that was focused on Hinata transitioning from throwing up on accident to throwing up on purpose. (And all the while, he has no idea how terrible it is for him.)

People often talked about nervousness and nausea, but Hinata didn’t know the difference between them. When he felt anxious, he also felt like throwing up. When he felt like throwing up, he also felt anxious.

However, as often as Hinata felt sick, it wasn’t often that he _actually_ vomited. Usually he just felt queasy. Sometimes he would go to the bathroom just in case, but it was hardly ever necessary. He was just scared, he wasn’t actually _sick._

So needless to say, throwing up all over Tanaka’s crotch came as a shock.

Hinata stared at Tanaka’s pants in horror. “Sorry-“ he tried to say before gagging again, He covered his mouth, willing himself to keep down whatever was left of his breakfast.

Tanaka was too busy shouting to respond, but Ennoshita had turned around in his seat. He rubbed Hinata’s back. “Woah, there, you’re okay,” he promised as the rest of the team screamed at the bus driver to pull over. “Just take it easy. You’re all right... You’re all right...”

Hinata’s shoulders heaved as the bus went over a bump. Sitting up was too much. He laid down on the backseat, his body hanging limply over the edge of the bench. He didn’t _feel_ good, and while he appreciated Ennoshita trying to help, the hand on his back was only jostling him further. “D-Don’t touch me,” he said quickly, before the talking could make him throw up.

“No problem,” Ennoshita promised. He moved his hand away. “You doing okay?”

Hinata covered his mouth with two hands, eyes wide. “Nnnn,” he managed.

Ennoshita frowned. “Okay... Well, just take it easy,” he repeated. “We’re almost there.”

Daichi seat hopped up to squeeze three to a seat with Ennoshita and Kazuhito. “Hinata? You okay?” he asked.

Hinata squeezed his eye closed. He was so anxious; his words kept getting stuck in his throat. Fortunately, Ennoshita spoke for him. “I think he still feels like throwing up. He’s super freaked,” Ennoshita said.

“Who cares about _Hinata?_ ” Tanaka screeched. “I have _puke_ on my _dick_.”

“ _Language_ ,” Daichi chastised. Hinata was glad that for once, he wasn’t the one getting yelled at. Daichi could be stern. No one wanted to be the one he was angry at, or worse: _disappointed_ with. “Take off your trackies and give them to me. I’ll put them in a trash bag to get washed later.”

Tanaka whined but started to kick out of his pants. Hinata paled as his undressing shook the seat. Daichi looked at him, concerned. “Hinata, the bus driver said we’re nearly there. Do you think we should find you a place to lie down when we get in? Maybe it’s best if you sit this one out.”

Hinata sat up stick straight before he could remember how sick he felt. “No!” he yelped.

Daichi looked alarmed. Meanwhile, another wave of nausea hit him with the force of a tsunami. Hinata fell back against the seat. “No, I want to play,” he continued. “I do, I just... I’m _nervous._ That’s all,” he promised.

Daichi seemed uncertain. He looked to Ennoshita who seemed just as concerned, but apparently not enough for Daichi to tell him to sit out. “Okay... Well, if we get there and you don’t feel any better, I’m sending you straight to the nurse, okay?”

“M’kay,” Hinata agreed, closing his eyes again. Fair enough. He could play; he just had to build up his confidence first.

* * *

Hinata was wobbly as he landed on his feet. He and Kageyama were _not_ gelling today, at least not like usual. He kept having to twist mid-air to catch Kageyama’s tosses as they flew past his axis of rotation. It made for shaky landings on Hinata’s part as he flailed to keep from touching the net.

Meanwhile, Kageyama’s temper was flaring.

“Dumbass, you could have got that one!” Kageyama shouted.

Hinata’s nose scrunched up. He was already having a bad day; he didn’t need Kageyama yelling at him for no reason. “My _arms_ are short, stupid! I can’t reach as far as everyone else can!”

“Well then maybe you should get taller!”

“How am I even supposed to do that?!” Hinata was sick of everyone putting him down because he was short. He couldn’t _change_ that. He didn’t have any control over his height, but he was making the most of the body he had. Why couldn’t everyone see that and at least respect him for the amount of effort he was putting in? Why was everyone always asking him to change things he couldn’t control?

“Figure it out!” Kageyama said stupidly, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. For a second, Hinata was sure that Kageyama was going to hit him, but Suga stepped between them before he could.

“Now, now, now, let’s just calm down,” he suggested. “I think we’re all just a little frustrated that we’re not connecting as fluidly as we usually do.” Suga looked pointedly at Kageyama.

Kageyama shrunk a little bit, looking down at his toes, and Hinata smirked. Kageyama _should_ look sheepish. This was all his fault, anyway. If he were tossing properly, then they wouldn’t have a problem.

“You guys must be exhausted,” Suga continued. “It’s great that you guys love practicing so much, but you can’t stay late every day without wearing out your bodies. If you want to do your _best_ , you have to _rest,_ ” he rhymed. “Why don’t you guys take a time out on the bench?”

Kageyama stood up straight that. “What?!”

Hinata was just as affronted “No!” he yelped.

Suga face went from smiling to stern in a millisecond. “ _Yes_ ,” he replied. “You can’t keep running on empty. Go take a water break.”

“But-“

Before Kageyama could finish whatever argument he had on the tip of his tongue, Daichi shouted at them from across the net. “Who’s disagreeing with Suga?” he asked, his eyebrows pinched together and head tilted menacingly.

Hinata’s spine went ramrod straight.

“Anyone who disagrees with Suga is disagreeing with _me_ ,” Daichi said, and it was enough to make Hinata and Kageyama run off to the sidelines, tails between their legs.

Hinata looked at the court longingly. All he wanted to do was play, and lately, he had even been messing _that_ up. At least in middle school, he could practice volleyball whenever he wanted. Now there were eleven other voices telling when he was and wasn’t allowed to play.

Hinata’s hands itched at his sides. He pulled on the bottom hem of his shorts, frustrated. There was nothing more important than volleyball. _Nothing._

“This is your fault,” Kageyama muttered, taking a swig from his water bottle.

Hinata pinched his side and dodged when Kageyama tried to grab his head. “Too slow,” he teased. Even if he couldn’t play volleyball, at least he could still bother Kageyama.

* * *

“Hey, Hinata, would you hang back for a minute? I need to talk to you,” Takeda said, pushing his glasses up on his nose. The words were intimidating, but Takeda wasn’t. Hinata easily slowed from a sprint to a jog as he turned around to meet with his advisor.

“Yeah, sure,” Hinata said, sweat dripping from the hair at the nape of his neck. Practice had been _hard._ Kageyama wanted to make up for the time they had missed yesterday, and he had pushed to fit in as many drills as possible before Ukai sent them home for the day. Hinata’s knees shook beneath him.

“Well, it’s just...” Takeda struggled to pull a piece of paper out of the mess of forms on his clipboard. “It’s about your grades,” he said, passing Hinata his unofficial transcript.

Hinata’s stomach flip-flopped.

Takeda must have read the nervous look on his face, and he held his hands up nonthreateningly. “Now don’t worry yet. You still have time to get your grades up. But as you know, academics are the most important thing here at Karasuno. Sports come second, so-“

“So I can’t play if I don’t start doing better?” Hinata asked, his voice wavering. He had been putting his grades on the backburner to try to get better at volleyball. He knew his spot on first string was dependent solely on his quick with Kageyama, and he wanted to become valuable independently. If Kageyama had another bad day tossing to him-

“Well, sort of. I mean, you wouldn’t be kicked off of the team, but you might have to start attending review classes, which overlap with club activities,” Takeda explained.

Hinata’s hands tightened around his transcripts. He gulped. “Oh.”

Takeda seemed distressed, and he flapped his arms, as if that would somehow settle Hinata’s racing heart. “Don’t worry, though. You have time,” he promised. “And I know you can do it. After all, Karasuno’s entrance exams aren’t exactly easy, and you passed those!”

“Well, yeah,” Hinata said slowly. “But with a lot of studying! I don’t know how I’m going to get my grades up,” he said, putting a hand to his head. This was too much. It felt like his life was spiraling out of control. High school was harder than middle school. The teachers were stricter, the tests were longer, the kids were bigger, and volleyball wasn’t anything like he thought it would be.

He squeezed his eyes up tight, feeling tears come on.

“Well, would you want to discuss study strategies? I _am_ a teacher, that’s my job,” Takeda offered, looking at Hinata pityingly.

“No thanks, I’m just going to go home,” Hinata answered, voice tight.

Takeda frowned. “Okay... Well, stay safe. Don’t ride your bike when you’re upset,” he said, and Hinata looked up at him incredulously before walking away.

* * *

Hinata’s eyes scrunched closed as his body jerked forward. Bile slipped up his throat and spilled into the toilet. He looked down at it helplessly, sitting back on his heels. This was the second time he had thrown up over volleyball.

Practice camp started tomorrow. Hinata wasn’t ready. Nekoma was supposed to be their biggest rivals, and Hinata was supposed to face them with nothing but a quick he had no control over and a shoddy receive.

He couldn’t even serve without hitting the net. He couldn’t block, he couldn’t do _anything_ , and it was going to be his fault when they inevitably lost their practice game.

Natsu knocked on the door to the bathroom as Hinata gagged again.

“Nii-chan? You ‘kay?” she asked from outside the door.

Hinata shuddered. “Ugh, yeah, Natsu. I’m just-“ he cut himself off with another violent wretch.

Natsu made a distressed noise on the other side of the door. “I’m getting mom!” she yelped. Her feet pounded against the floor as she ran away to find their mother. Hinata’s shoulders tensed. He didn’t _want_ his mom. He wanted to be good at volleyball, and she couldn’t help with that.

Hinata hugged the toilet seat a little tighter, his head spinning. He couldn’t handle this responsibility. Everything felt like too much, and honestly, the only thing keeping him from crying was expelling all of his feelings and stomach acid at the same time.

He took a shaky breath and flushed the toilet. His mom knocked on the bathroom door a second later. “Shou-chan? Are you okay in there?”

Hinata ran a hand through his tangled hair. “Yeah, mom. Just nervous.”

* * *

“You look a little green today, Hinata. Are you going to throw up on me again?” Tanaka teased, poking Hinata’s hip across the aisle. Hinata laughed and squirmed away.

“No! I’m actually really excited!” he promised. He had gotten rid of all of his nerves last night in the bathroom. He had thrown up, and cried, and now that he had purged all of his anxiety, he could focus on how exciting it was to play with a _real_ team and how _cool_ it was that he’d get to spike and score points. He had been waiting for this forever, after all, and he wasn’t going to screw up the first set this time like he had during the Seijou game. He was going to do his best.

“Idiot, you should be _focused_ ,” Kageyama muttered next to him, rolling his eyes.

Hinata decided to ignore him. Instead he turned to face Tanaka, his knees hanging in the aisle. “I was really scared last night, and I _did_ throw up a little, but now it’s like: Where are we staying? What will the food be like? What’s _Nekoma_ like? Do you think they’re nice? Do you think there’s anyone my age? I hope I make friends! And maybe I’ll get to score points, and Kageyama has being doing really great tosses all this week, and maybe we’ll win, and-“

Tanaka’s booming laugh cut him off. “That’s what I like about you, kid,” he said, ruffling Hinata’s hair. "You’ve got such a good attitude."

Hinata beamed, glad for the positive attention. Any time Tanaka said he was doing a good job he couldn’t help but feel proud of himself. Tanaka was the most blunt out of all his team members, so Hinata knew he wouldn’t compliment him without meaning it.

“You threw up?” Kageyama asked. His glare cut through the happy atmosphere.

Hinata squirmed. “Only, like, _twice,_ Bakageyama,” he whined. “Leave me alone.”

Kageyama’s eyes narrowed further, but he didn’t say anything. Instead he crossed his arms and went back to staring out the window. Hinata let him sulk. Kageyama was always in a bad mood, even when there was nothing for him to be grumpy about.

* * *

Hinata’s arm swung, but his hand didn’t make contact with anything. The ball flew up over his reach and fell to the floor a moment later.

_Fuck._

He couldn’t even _serve_ right.

Hinata stared at the ball as it rolled away from him, unable to move as a crippling burst of anxiety turned his blood to ice. He was such a _failure._ He didn’t deserve a team; he didn’t deserve to play. If he was this terrible during practice, how could he justify playing in an actual tournament?

“Hey, Hinata, you okay?” Suga asked, and Hinata startled when Suga’s long fingers wrapped around his elbow out of nowhere.

“Um...” Tears pooled in his eyes.

“You weren’t moving,” Suga pointed out gently, guiding him off of the court. Hinata pulled his arm out of Suga’s grasp like it burned him. His breath hitched.

“I just... I need to go to the bathroom,” he said, unable to look Suga in the eye. He felt guilty. It wasn’t fair that he got to play as a crappy first year, and Suga couldn’t as a practiced third year. Suga could at least serve properly. Honestly, Hinata should probably just stick to underhanded serves for the rest of his career; he was so awful at overhanded ones.

His cheeks heated up with the embarrassment of it all.

“Sure, no problem,” Suga said, giving him permission. “Do you need me to come with you?”

Hinata shook his head quickly. The last thing he needed was for Suga to see him crying. “I’m fine,” he answered. His throat was clogged with tears. “I’ll be right back.”

Hinata ran off before Suga could stop him. The second he reached the bathroom, he lock himself in a stall. He fell to his knees.

Hinata paused and looked at the toilet, sizing it up.

Despite the tears threatening to spill over his lashes, he didn’t feel anxious at all. His heart wasn’t racing now that he didn’t have the team around to see him cry. However, his airway felt like it had shrunk down to the size of a straw, and his lungs pumped uselessly as he struggled to suck air in.

He felt like such a _failure_. And even if he wasn’t nauseous, Hinata _really, really_ wanted to throw up.

In the time it took for him to blink, Hinata was hunched over the toilet, finger digging at the back of his throat.

It was hard to keep his hand jammed in his mouth –it was uncomfortable to force himself to keep his gag reflex stimulated - but after a couple seconds of choking and searching the back of his throat with his index finger, his esophagus finally started to start pushing up the contents of his stomach.

Hinata sputtered as spit and yellow acid dribbled down the back of his hand. He quickly took his fingers out of his mouth. His stomach pumped hard and he threw up all the water he had swallowed during practice.

When it was over, Hinata grit his teeth together, finally crying in earnest. His chest heaved.

He didn’t want to mess up anymore. He wanted to go back to practice, but he didn’t feel confident at all: kneeling on the bathroom tiles with vomit dripping off his chin.

He fumbled for a piece of toilet paper to wipe himself off. He dropped it into the toilet and flushed. His throat hurt: maybe from scraping at it or maybe from throwing up. Either way, Hinata felt so _stupid_ for being so impulsive. It would be hard to do diving drills with his stomach twisting like this.

When he finally stumbled back to the gym, Kageyama was the first one to take a good look at him. “Hey, are you okay?” he asked, eyeing Hinata critically. He reached into Hinata’s personal space, thumbing at a tear track that Hinata had missed when he washed his face.

Hinata batted his hand away. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, voice hoarse. When Kageyama glared at him, Hinata took a shuddering breath. “Look, I just wanna play, okay? I’ll be better if we just... play,” he said lamely.

Kageyama arched his eyebrow but –for once- didn’t argue. “Okay,” he agreed. “We’ll stay after, and I’ll toss to you.”

A wavering smile lit up Hinata’s face. “Thanks,” he said, relief washing over him. He was okay. He just needed to fit a little more practice in, and then he would be fine.

* * *

Hinata squirmed in his desk chair as he tried to focus on his reading. He had a literature test tomorrow, and he figured that going over a few chapters of _Kokoro_ wouldn’t hurt.

Unfortunately, Hinata wasn’t the best reader. He wasn’t great at focusing for any amount of time, and his ability to pay attention grew worse when he was tired. As it was, he was _exhausted._ Going straight from volleyball to studying sometimes felt like too much, no matter how much energy and happiness volleyball brought him.

Hinata was tired. Did he already mention how tired he was? He was _so tired._

He pulled his eyes from his textbook. Staring at it wasn’t doing him any good anyway. Instead, he rested his cheek on his desk and looked down willfully at his book bag. He had so many books, and worksheets, and notebooks stuffed inside.

Takeda-sensei had said he wouldn’t get kicked off the team for bad grades, but he did stress how important doing well in school was if he wanted to practice, and Hinata wanted to practice _so badly._

He screwed his eyes up, feeling overwhelmed.

Maybe he would just study for literature tonight. Doing anything else made him feel nauseous. Honestly, he was so behind in most of his classes, he didn’t know where to begin.

In the end, Hinata fell asleep with his nose in the crack of his novel, hunched over his desk. When his alarm went off at 6 a.m., he woke up confused and stiff with absolutely no memory of anything he had reviewed the night before. It took everything Hinata had not to give up and go back to sleep.

Sometimes it felt like he was failing before the day even began.

* * *

“Hey, Hinata, thanks for practice today. I really feel like my blocking got better because of you,” Tanaka complimented, miming jumping diagonally to block Hinata.

Hinata flushed. “No problem. Thanks for being so tough to get past,” he replied, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly.

Daichi snuck up behind him and ruffled his hair. “I agree with Tanaka. You did great today, Hinata,” he promised. “I’m glad to have you on the team.”

Hinata turned bright pink. “T-Thank you, senpai!” he squeaked, overwhelmed. Having Daichi’s approval was _everything._ He felt his ears turn pink as he struggled to keep cool in front of his upperclassmen. He dipped into a low bow.

Tanaka laughed as Hinata’s torso paralleled with the floor. He clapped Hinata’s shoulder. “Oi, kid, calm down. Don’t bow when someone compliments you,” he advised, forcing Hinata to straighten up. He looked at Hinata calculatingly. “You know, when I first met you, I didn’t like you-“

Suga snorted from the other side of the clubroom. “You don’t like _anyone_ you first meet, Tanaka,” he said, but Tanaka ignored him.

“But I’ve changed my mind.” He dropped the vice-like grip he had on Hinata’s shoulders and turned in search of Ennoshita. “Hey, Chikara. Let’s invite everyone over to your place next Friday.”

Ennoshita winced. “Ryū, you can’t just invite other people over to _my_ house.”

“It’s decided,” Tanaka said, apparently in no mood to pay attention to any negativity. Fortunately, Ennoshita didn’t look annoyed enough to stop him. “Hinata, you’ll come, right?”

“Ah, yes!” Hinata squeaked, trying not to feel stressed by the thought. Hanging out with second years was a big deal, even if they were his teammates. He wrung his hands together anxiously.

“Good,” Tanaka said happily before moving to pester Tsukishima and Yamaguchi into coming. Hinata felt flushed but happy. Daichi offered him a comforting smile.

“You know, I think Tanaka has the right idea. It’ll be good to talk to each other outside of volleyball and meat buns,” he said, smacking Hinata on the back fondly. Hinata’s breathing picked up but his smile stayed on his face. While it was stressful to talk to people who were older than him, he was still grateful for all of their attention.

* * *

Hinata knew his English test hadn’t gone well. His teacher had tested them on the names of vegetables (which had gone fine) and fruits, of which Hinata could only remember three. He had studied all night, but the only fruits he could recall were strawberries, peaches, and watermelon.

Now, Hinata was kneeling in his bathroom, wondering if he could make himself throw up like he had during practice last week.

When he had thrown up last time, he had been strangely calm. This time, however, he was terrified. It had hurt to force himself to throw up, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to do it again.

However, he also felt nauseous.

He would do anything to get rid of the anxious feeling swelling in his stomach and chest, even throw up the hot pot his mom had made for dinner. He had been nervous all day, and he knew that if he could just vomit, he would feel _so much better._

It took awhile for Hinata to hype himself up, but eventually, he forced his fingers to the back of his throat.

While last time had been easy, this time it was hard. Hinata gagged around his hand, but nothing made it more than a quarter of the ways up his chest. His hand felt too big in his mouth, and his fingers kept recoiling before he could throw up properly.

Desperate, Hinata reached for his toothbrush. It was long and thin, and the bristles roughed up his already raw throat.

He choked when something got caught in his pharynx.

His eyes watered. He took his toothbrush out of his mouth and gripped the edges of the toilet bowl as he hacked up a thin, gooey trail of spit. He couldn’t _breathe._ Every time he tried to inhale his chest shuddered and he gagged again.

Inch by inch, the bile in his chest worked his way up through his neck and out of his mouth. He coughed up a river of meat and vegetables. Once it started coming up, he couldn’t stop until it had all rushed out of him.

His knuckles were as white as the porcelain as he held onto the toilet seat for stability, eyes blown wide as he took in painful breaths. That had been _awful._ The pain Hinata felt last time was a mild discomfort compared to the soreness in his throat now, like swallowing a bag full of potato chips the wrong way.

With shaking hands, Hinata turned off the bathwater before he could overflow the bathroom. The house was startlingly quiet without the water running.

Even with the water off, it took Hinata a minute to get in the bathtub. He felt _so disgusting,_ and he was _so tired._ Hinata rested his cheek against the cold floor tiles as he tried to muster up some energy. That had _wrecked_ him.

Eventually, Hinata managed to pick himself off the floor and slip into the tub. He closed his eyes and dunked under water, wishing he could wash it all away.

* * *

“Hinata, you be the final vote: _Versus_ or _Marebito_?” Nishinoya asked, shoving the two DVDs in Hinata’s face. Hinata frowned.

“Ahhh... But they’re both scary,” he said. Nishinoya nodded enthusiastically. Hinata squirmed, his skinny legs taking up less than half a couch cushion. “Asahi doesn’t _like_ scary.”

“It’s good for Asahi to deal with scary sometimes,” Nishinoya said flippantly. “Now pick one!”

Hinata tried not to feel overwhelmed. It was his first time getting invited to Ennoshita’s house. He knew that the second years had movie nights together sometimes, but this was the first time the invitation had been extended to the rest of the team. He wasn’t sure how welcome he was, and he didn’t want to choose the wrong movie and let anyone down.

“Seriously, Hinata, just pick one,” Nishinoya whined impatiently, stomping his foot and holding the movies a little closer to Hinata’s face. Hinata’s vision blurred as he tried to read their titles; they were so close.

“Um, this one,” Hinata said, pointing at the one to his left.

Nishinoya flipped it around and read the title. “ _Marebita,”_ he announced. “Awesome! I’ll put it in! Ryū, if you steal my spot on the recliner, I’ll kill you.” Nishinoya glared at Tanaka as he made his way to the DVD player, and Hinata shrunk inwards on himself a little. He buried his hands between his thighs.

“Hey, mind if I squeeze in?”

Hinata looked up to see Daichi. The older boy had a couple bags of iwashi senbei in his arms, and he was looking down at Hinata hopefully.

“Sure,” Hinata said a little belatedly. He scooted over until his hip and shoulders lined up with the person sitting next to him: Kageyama.

“Dumbass, give me some personal space,” Kageyama said, shouldering him good-naturedly.

Normally, Hinata would play into Kageyama. He liked bantering with him, even when it turned into wrestling and Kageyama pulled his hair. It was their _thing_. But today, Hinata was too nervous to not take anything Kageyama said as a serious criticism. He inhaled sharply as Daichi sat down, jostling everyone on the couch. Neither Kageyama nor Daichi missed his sudden nerves.

“What did I do?” Kageyama asked immediately, looking pale.

Hinata shook his head. “Nothing, I’m fine,” he promised, but Kageyama didn’t look sure. Hinata didn’t know what his expression looked like, but apparently it was concerning if the worried looks Kageyama and Daichi were giving him were anything to go by.

Daichi gave Hinata an evaluating look and turned to Nishinoya. “Oi, Noya. Don’t put on a horror movie tonight,” he suggested.

Hinata sat up, his matchstick arms rubbing together as he shifted anxiously. “No, no, horror is fine!” he promised because it _was_. Hinata actually liked scary movies, especially when he was watching them with other people. It was fun to be scared when the feeling ended with the credits. Scary movies were _fun._ He was anxious for reasons beyond a stupid horror movie tonight.

He just didn’t want to mess up. Not with his friends, not with his team, not with _anyone._

Daichi waved him off. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want to watch one, Asahi _definitely_ doesn’t want to watch one, and we have first years here. Pick something appropriate,” Daichi demanded.

Nishinoya and Tanaka whined. Meanwhile Suga pouted at Daichi. “Are you sure?” he asked, silver hair falling into his eyes cutely. Daichi seemed to hesitate, but he one look at Hinata strengthened his resolve.

“I’m sure,” he said firmly.

Hinata buried his face in his hands, humiliated. This was all _his_ fault; he was ruining everyone’s night. He knew he shouldn’t have come tonight. He should be home studying, not goofing around.

“But _why?_ ” Nishinoya whined, dropping to the ground dramatically. Daichi got up from the couch and gave all his snacks to Hinata to hold. He stepped over Nishinoya’s limp body.

“I’m putting on Ponyo,” he said.

“ _No!”_ Nishinoya wailed, grabbing onto Daichi’s ankle.

Meanwhile, Hinata’s cheeks had colored a brilliant red. Kageyama knocked their shoulders together, albeit much gentler this time. “You better?” he asked.

“ _No_ ,” Hinata said miserably. “I really wouldn’t have minded watching a crappy scary movie, honest,” he promised.

Kageyama shrugged. “Okay,” he said dumbly. They were both quiet, mirroring each other and wringing their hands, while Nishinoya tried ineffectively to wrestle Daichi away from the DVD player. Kageyama cleared his throat after a minute. “... Are you better now?”

Hinata bristled. “ _No_ , stupid. Quit asking!” he snapped, and immediately felt guilty.

Kageyama’s eyes widened, and he fell silent until the movie started playing. Daichi passed around snacks, asking everyone to share, and Hinata pressed his lips together when he realized he had to split his bag of iwashi senbei with Kageyama.

Their hands brushed whenever they reached in the bag at the same time. As much as Hinata tried, he couldn’t ignore the electric feel of Kageyama’s skin touching his. Their bodies were lined up from head to toe. Hinata squeezed his eyes closed. He couldn’t focus on the movie at all.

Hinata gave up on eating. He was too nervous for it, anyway.


	2. Absolution

Standing up over the toilet, toothbrush armed in one hand, Hinata realized that his was getting easier. If he used the bristled end of his toothbrush and stood up, the vomit came out in one easy go. It also helped when he drank a lot of water before he threw up. Food came up easier with liquid.

He was learning so many tricks. If he ate an orange too close to vomiting, it burned his throat on the way out. Eating syrupy things like popsicles felt smooth and soothing as they came back up, but they also coated the inside of his throat. If he said he was going to have a bath, his mom wouldn’t question the running water hiding the sounds of him gagging. Splashing cool water on his face stopped his eyes from stinging red after throwing up.

He didn’t like it when his mom heard him vomiting. She always got so worried. It was best if she didn’t know; Hinata couldn’t keep up with how over-protective she got whenever she thought he was sick.

Hinata wasn’t _sick_ ; he was just throwing up because he felt like it. He used to throw up because his stomach made him, but now he was beating it to the punch, and that felt nice. Satisfying. Especially when there were so many things in his life that were out of his control.

Plus, there was something cleansing about throwing up. He felt lighter after purging, like his footsteps weren’t so heavy as he walked around and his lungs were floating in his chest. All of the bad feelings –his fear, his sadness, his anxiety- got whisked away from him when he flushed.

With the contents of his stomach and heart in the toilet, Hinata felt like he could hold his chin up high again.

Hinata abandoned his toothbrush to stuff a spindly finger into his mouth. He poked blindly at the back of his throat, trying to force up the last little bit of food he could still feel churning in his stomach.

(He didn’t know when throwing up switched from a one and done thing to an active effort to get every single thing he had eaten out of his body, but he figured it didn’t much matter as long as he didn’t throw up after _every_ meal.)

When Hinata was finished, he flushed everything down the toilet. He quickly washed his hands before jumping into the already filled bathtub. The water was warm against his cold skin.

Hinata closed his eyes, knobby knees to his chest. The only problem with throwing up was how tired it made him. Also, he couldn't be sure, but he thought that maybe had lost weight. The tendons connecting his calves and thighs stuck out obviously from the back of his knees, but Hinata had always been skinny.

He leaned his head back against the edge of the tub, too tired to care. Within a minute, the sound of his snores filled the bathroom (rather than the sound of his gagging).

* * *

Hinata picked at his rice.

Kageyama flicked a cherry tomato at his forehead. “Oi, you’ve gotta eat if you’re going to do well today,” Kageyama said.

Hinata collapsed back in the grass and whined. “But I already _did_ do well today,” he complained. They had faced Tokonami and won. Next was Date Tech, and Hinata was confident that they could win again, especially if he had time to go to the bathroom before the game.

“Yeah, after breakfast. And now you need to do well after lunch,” Kageyama said.

Hinata huffed and looked down at his bento box. He _really_ didn’t want to eat his rice. It always turned into a big, doughy mess in his stomach, and throwing it up was nearly impossible. Maybe if he ate it slowly-

“Come on, quarterfinals are serious,” Kageyama said, interrupting his train of thought. Hinata blinked up at him, albeit a little sluggishly.

“Of _course_ , quarterfinals are serious, Kageyama, I _know_ that,” Hinata said. He had thrown up three times in the past 24 hours in an effort to _stop_ thinking about how serious they were. He was so _nervous_. The stakes were way too high. He had the high school careers of three third years on his shoulders, and he didn’t want to mess up what potentially their last tournament.

Without meaning to, Hinata curled his knees to his chest. His fingers laced into his hair as he fought to stop thinking about how _terrified_ he was. He had been so confident a second ago, and now he was _so scared_. He didn’t want to _mess up_.

Kageyama stared at Hinata as he slumped. “Wait, what?” he asked stupidly.

Hinata ducked his head between his knees. “I know they’re serious, Kageyama, I know they are, I _know_ ,” he said, shoulders shaking.

Kageyama didn’t seem to know what to do because the next thing he asked was: “Are you okay?”

 _“No_ ,” Hinata answered.

Kageyama swore under his breath. “Shit.” There was a sudden weight on Hinata’s back that startled him for a second before he recognized it as Kageyama’s hand. He looked up at the other boy. Kageyama was frowning. “What’s going on? You never seem okay anymore,” he said.

Hinata’s heart beat irregularly in his chest, the rhythm reminding him of an old car starting. “I dunno,” he answered honestly. “It’s just... It’s like... You know when you’re really scared, and there’s, like... all this pressure on you, and it makes you feel sick?”

The space between Kageyama’s eyebrows creased as he thought. “Um... No,” he answered, and Hinata slumped.

“Okay... Well... Well, I feel like that all the time. Like I want to throw up _all the time_. And before it was just before games and stuff, but now it’s like... Now I’m _always_ that scared.”

“Of messing up in a volleyball match?” Kageyama asked, the crease between his eyebrows deepening.

Hinata huffed out a sigh. “No. Of... of other stuff.”

“Other stuff,” Kageyama repeated.

Hinata twitched, agitated. “Well, yeah. Like volleyball is really hard, obviously, but so are other things, like homework and making friends. And when I think about how hard everything is, I want to throw up. Like, _really bad_ , Kageyama. I want to throw up really, super bad.”

Kageyama’s eyes flickered back and forth like they always did when he was confused. The corners of his mouth dipped lower and lower as he searched Hinata’s face for some kind of answer. “... Are you sick?” he finally asked.

Hinata covered his face with both hands, resisting the urge to scream in frustration. “No,” he answered. “Never mind. I just... I don’t feel well, I’m going to the bathroom,” he said, running away before Kageyama could stop him.

His bento lay in the grass, untouched.

* * *

Hinata sat on the bus, tucked up next to Kageyama. They had lost against Seijou. Hinata had known that independently he wasn’t good enough to beat Seijou, but he had thought maybe if the rest of the team was able to make up for his slack, they’d be able to pull through.

Apparently, Hinata was too big of a disaster for even five gifted team members to make up for.

Hinata hadn’t stopped crying since eating with the rest of the team. He felt too personally responsible. Usually, the thing Hinata liked most about himself was how passionate he was about volleyball, but now it felt like the worst thing about him.

Every time he thought he had run out of tears, he thought about the receives he had missed and the served he had messed up. His sleeves were saturated with snot and tears as he wiped at his eyes and nose.

Hinata gagged.

“Dumbass, you need to calm down. You’re making yourself sick,” Kageyama said, the worry in his voice taking the edge off his words. He sounded scared. Hinata didn’t know how to deal with a scared Kageyama.

His heart beat sadistically in his chest. “Would if I could,” he panted, gagging again. He couldn’t help himself; he was so anxious.

“Stop it!” Kageyama yelped, and Hinata looked at him helplessly. He didn’t want to be crying like this, especially not in front of the whole team. It was embarrassing. He had already humiliated himself on the court; he didn’t need to make it worse by crying like a baby in front of all of his upperclassmen.

Kiyoko turned around. She passed Hinata a water bottle over the back of her seat. “Here, Hinata. Drink this,” she said. Hinata’s hands shook around the bottle, and Kageyama opened the cap for him. Hinata felt stupid when Kageyama held it to his lips and helped him drink. “Little sips,” Kiyoko said, helping Kageyama to tip the bottle in intervals and make Hinata slow down.

Hinata tried not to think about the water sitting in his stomach. He tried not to think about the meal he just ate, all the meat and rice churning inside of him. It would hurt to throw up. Hinata’s throat already felt tender. He’d been puking out his guts for the past two days, and every swallow stung.

“You’re okay,” Kageyama said. He sounded like a recording, like he had memorized what other people said during times like these and was playing the memory on repeat. “You’re okay.”

“You’re going to be all right,” Kiyoko said knowingly. “You did well today, Hinata. Don’t start doubting yourself.”

Hinata made a keening noise. He remembered his mistakes all over again. Every time the ball had dropped, Hinata knew where he had to be and knew what he had to do to stop it. He just couldn’t make his body move fast enough to make it happen. He had no _control._

His stomach swirled, and Hinata doubled over, pushing the water bottle out of the way as he very nearly threw up on the floor of the bus.

Kageyama threw an arm around his shoulders and forced him into a hug. Hinata’s eyes widened when his nose flattened against Kageyama’s chest. Kageyama’s arms wrapped around him.

“Just calm down,” he demanded, holding Hinata in the most aggressive hug he had ever received. “Seriously, just _calm down._ ”

Hinata’s chin quivered.

“You’re okay, all right?” Kageyama asked. He sounded irritated at first, but as he kept talking, Hinata could detect a waver in his voice. “I’m _right here_. I _have_ you. And maybe we lost today, and that sucked, but we’re going to win next time because I’m _here_ , dumbass. You’re fine, you just need to relax.”

“’Yama,” Hinata squeaked.

Kageyama thrust the water bottle into his hands. They had miraculously stopped shaking. “Tiny sips, all right?” he asked, his jaw locked. “And then go to sleep. You’ve been running around all day, you must be exhausted.”

Hinata blinked. He _was_ exhausted. “Okay,” he agreed, taking tiny sips just like Kiyoko had said. She was still staring at him from the seat in front. And then, because Hinata hated himself, he repeated: “You’re here.”

“Yeah,” Kageyama said, burying his nose into Hinata’s hair. “I’m here.”

* * *

The next day at practice, Hinata couldn’t stop wringing his hands together long enough to get in a warm up stretch. He bit his bottom lip as everyone else leaned over to touch their toes. He stayed frozen, sitting upright. “I need to throw up,” he muttered under his breath.

Kageyama glared at him from under his arm as he stretched. “No you don’t.”

Hinata swallowed and looked down at his toes.

* * *

“Hey, Hinata, want a meat bun? I’m buying,” Asahi offered, holding up his wallet proudly.

Hinata shuffled, sticking close to the freezers in Ukai’s store. “Um, actually, I was thinking I would have a popsicle,” he answered, his voice hoarse. His throat hurt _so badly,_ but he still felt guilty about losing against Seijou. He knew he would need to puke up his guts tonight if he was going to stand any chance of sleeping. An ice pop would feel better coming up than a meat bun, and the cool, melted syrup would feel soothing on the way down.

Asahi frowned. “It’s a little cold for a popsicle,” he said. “But I’ll pay for it, if that’s what you want.”

Hinata nodded. His throat hurt too much to speak up.

Asahi waited for him to pick out the flavor he wanted. When Hinata put a peach flavored Gari Gari into his hands, Asahi made a face. “Ah, actually, I lied. I’m only going to pay for _good_ popsicles. You gotta pick a different flavor, I can’t condone peach.”

Hinata floundered. He searched through the box of popsicles, anxiety flaring for no reason. He was sure Asahi was mostly teasing about peach not being a good flavor, and he knew that this wasn’t a test, but for some reason, Hinata still felt like he was failing.

Asahi reached around his narrow shoulders and grabbed a soda ice pop. “How about this one?” he asked. Hinata looked at it. Would soda burn his throat? He wasn’t sure how soda would feel coming up. Was it too acidic? Meanwhile, Asahi was looking at him funny. “Or, you know, I can get you peach. Why don’t I get you peach? I’ll just get you peach,” he promised, walking away quickly.

Hinata rubbed his face, trying to get rid of whatever anxious expression Asahi had seen. Apparently, he’d looked stressed enough for Asahi to run off with a soda _and_ peach popsicle in each hand.

An arm slung around Hinata’s shoulders. “Hey, you okay? You’ve been quiet,” Tanaka asked, taking a bite out of his meat bun. Hinata’s nose twitched at the smell.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Your voice is scratchy,” Tanaka noticed. Hinata shrugged. “Laryngitis?” Hinata shrugged again. Tanaka hummed. “Well, don’t be sick for too long. We’ve got time until the next tournament, but you wouldn’t want to miss too much practice,” he said casually.

“Who’s missing practice?” Asahi asked, coming back with Hinata’s popsicle and Nishinoya in toe. He passed Hinata the peach one and threw the spare soda flavored popsicle back in the freezer.

Hinata unwrapped it while Tanaka answered for him. “No one,” Tanaka promised. “As long as we all rest properly between practices and eat well. And also wear facemasks. Why don’t young kids wear facemasks nowadays? Don’t they know how many airborne germs they’re breathing in? Especially during _flu season_ , what the shit?”

“Ryū, you’re talking like my grandpa,” Nishinoya teased, playfully punching Tanaka in the stomach.

“Well, these _young kids_ -“ he repeated before Nishinoya could cut him off.

“ _You’re_ a young kid,” Nishinoya said with a good-natured eye roll. Tanaka crossed his arms and grumbled something under his breath. Meanwhile, Hinata bit into his ice pop.

He let it melt in his mouth and run down his throat. It coated everything raw, cooling everything down a couple degrees. Hinata closed his eyes as he took another bite, happy for the relief it offered.

“Oi, Hinata, you okay?” Asahi asked, guiding him by the elbow out of the store. Nishinoya and Tanaka were already out on the sidewalk.

“Just feels good,” Hinata answered.

Asahi smiled. “Well, great! Glad I could buy it for you, then. If you need anything else, just let me know,” he said. Hinata smiled weakly. He needed more than Asahi could offer him; that was for sure.

* * *

Hinata jumped when a milk carton appeared under his nose. He looked up at Kageyama. “Um... what?”

“For you, dumbass,” Kageyama said.

Hinata took the container out of Kageyama’s hands. He peeled the straw away from it’s casing and stuffed it through the foil. As he took a sip, he felt Kageyama’s eyes on him. “What?” he snapped, nose scrunching up.

“Just... making sure,” Kageyama said cautiously.

Hinata scratched at his ankle when he recognized the fearful look in Kageyama’s eye. He had been a little harsher than usual with Kageyama lately, but it wasn’t Kageyama’s fault. Hinata was just tired and hungry; it was making him grumpy.

He patted the spot next to him in the grass for Kageyama to sit down. He bumped their knees together as a silent apology. “Making sure of what?” Hinata asked, slender fingers pushing back his hair as it blew in the breeze. Kageyama caught one of his fragile wrists.

“That you were gonna drink it,” he said.

Hinata laughed and pulled away from Kageyama’s grip. “Well, of _course_ I’m gonna drink it,” he said. “I’d never turn down free milk.”

Kageyama pressed his lips together and looked down at the ground. He twisted a couple blades of grass together. “...Right.”

“And milk from the great King of the Court Kageyama?” Hinata continued. “Why, I’d be stupid to turn it down! I could never deny a present from _royalty_ ,” he teased. Kageyama glowered, but he couldn’t hide his smile. Hinata was the only one who could call him a king and have it be funny instead of mean.

Kageyama pulled him into a headlock. “That’s right,” he said, rubbing his knuckles against Hinata’s scalp. Hinata squealed.

“Let me go, let me go!” he yelped. The pressure around Hinata’s neck disappeared, and he figured he was being set free. However, a second later, Kageyama had his hands on either side of Hinata’s face. Hinata squinted an eye up at Kageyama in confusion. He took a lazy sip of milk. “You okay there?” he asked.

Kageyama frowned. “Your face is puffy,” he said. “Did you eat something salty? Did you just wake up?”

Hinata frowned. “Ah, no. I’ve only eaten my filefish so far, and its lunchtime, weirdo. I woke up like six hours ago.”

Kageyama frowned and dropped Hinata’s face, only to pick up his hands. He held one up and looked at his knuckles. “You have little scars,” he said, pointing out the red marks on Hinata’s knuckles.

“Yeah,” he answered. Usually, he used his toothbrush to throw up, but sometimes he could only do it with his finger, and his teeth rubbed up against the skin.

Kageyama looked at him, then, his eyes drooped.

Hinata’s breath caught in his throat. Never before had he seen Kageyama so sad, had he seen _anyone_ so sad. To have it all directed at him took the air right out of Hinata’s lungs.

“You should finish drinking this,” Kageyama said, curling the hand he had stolen back around the milk carton he’d bought. “And maybe finish your lunch. It’s important to eat before practice.”

“Yeah, okay,” Hinata said with a shrug, not sure what Kageyama’s deal was. Lately, he had been packing himself yogurt with banana to cut up into his lunch and a little bit of fish. He hadn’t been as anxious at school lately (the effects of the Seijou match were finally starting to ease off), but he still didn’t want to eat anything too difficult to throw up for lunch. He saved all the really hard-to-eat foods for breakfast, when he knew he wouldn’t have the chance to vomit until well after everything was digested.

Hinata took one last swig of milk before cutting his banana up into his yoghurt. Kageyama watched him carefully. “Hinata,” he said, speaking up suddenly. “You’d tell me if something was wrong, right?”

Hinata frowned. “I _did_ tell you something was wrong. Before the Date Tech game, remember?”

Kageyama squirmed. “You just said that you were stressed.”

Hinata nodded and took a bite of his banana before going back to cutting it up into pieces. The slices fell into his yogurt container. “I _am_ stressed.”

Kageyama huffed and pulled his knees to his chest. Hinata’s stomach swirled as he watched him curl in on himself. He seemed so upset. Hinata didn’t know what he did, but he knew this was his fault.

He shuffled a little closer to Kageyama and looped their arms together. “Hey, don’t worry, okay? If I had any secrets, I’d tell you first,” he promised, nuzzling his cheek against Kageyama’s bicep.

Kageyama was still for a moment, but he released a shaky breath a moment later. “Okay,” he said. “And you swear you’re gonna eat lunch, right?”

“Yep!” Hinata said, taking a big bite of yoghurt and banana just to prove it. He picked up the skeleton of his fish and held it out for Kageyama to see. “Already ate half of it,” he said, wiggling the bones in Kageyama’s face.

Kageyama looked grossed out, and he leaned away. However, seeing Hinata eat seemed to calm him, so Hinata finished up the rest of his meal quickly. He didn’t know why it made Kageyama so happy, but either way, Hinata didn’t want to upset him any further. He managed to eat lunch without another incident.

* * *

Hinata hissed when he fell into the net. He couldn’t control his body at all lately. His joints hurt, and his knees kept knocking together, even when he was standing still. Every jump he made was either too short or too long, and now his limbs were stuck in the net.

Suga picked him up from under the armpits, untangling him. “Hinata, you’ve been off today,” he said as he helped free him. He weighed him in his arms before putting him down. His eyes widened. “And you’re so light.”

Hinata squirmed. “I don’t feel that great,” he said honestly. He felt weak.

“I think maybe you need a break,” Suga said, looking at him closely. His hands hadn’t left Hinata’s torso yet. They circled around his ribcage as Suga peered at him. Hinata bit his bottom lip, feeling scrutinized.

“Yeah,” he said, stomach churning. He didn’t like how Suga was staring at him; it made him nervous. “Actually, I think I might go to the bathroom, if that’s okay.”

Suga dropped his hold on him. “Of course. You don’t have to always as for my permission,” he said. Hinata nodded shakily, and Suga carded his sweaty hair off his face. “Just come back soon, yeah? You might be dehydrated, it would be good for you to drink some water.”

“Will do,” Hinata promised.

As he left the gym, he felt eyes drill into the back of his head. He turned back while he walked out the door. Kageyama was standing still, center court, glaring at him as he walked away.

Hinata paled and scurried off. Kageyama was so scary.

Meanwhile, the bathroom was a welcome sight. Hinata made his way into the middle stall and took a knee. It was easier to throw up when he was standing, but he didn’t have his toothbrush, and sometimes leaning his elbow on the toilet seat helped him keep his hand in his mouth as he gagged.

He hadn’t thrown up in awhile, so it didn’t hurt quite as much to dig his finger around the back of his mouth. He hadn’t had too much homework, lately, and practice for volleyball had been fun, even if he felt weaker than usual. Only today had he been messing up enough to warrant feeling _this_ anxious.

Hinata had only managed to hack up a bit of mucus when he heard the bathroom door open.

“Hinata?”

Hinata choked around his hand. _Kageyama?_

“Hinata, are you-“ The voice traveled from the entrance of the bathroom to the stall next to Hinata’s. There was a sound of porcelain clanking, and when Kageyama spoke next, the noise came from above. “Hinata, _what?”_

Hinata looked up, only to see Kageyama’s wide eyes above the top of one of the stall walls. Hinata took his hand out of his mouth. “H-hold on,” he coughed. He jabbed the back of his throat again and a waterfall of vomit spilled out of him. It was mostly water –what he had drank so far during practice- but it was tinted purple from the candy Yamaguchi had given him earlier.

Kageyama made a distressed noise and jumped off the toilet he was standing on. A second later, he was banging on Hinata’s stall door. “Cut it out! Stop it! Let me in!” Kageyama was screaming as he pounded on the door hard enough to rattle the hinges. “Stop doing that!”

Hinata finished throwing up, and lowered his other knee. He looked at the shaking door, frozen.

“Let me _in_. Let me in, Hinata, or I _swear-_ Let me in!” Kageyama’s voice had gone from furious to begging, and Hinata suddenly felt sick all over again. “Let me _in_ ,” Kageyama said, voice breaking, and Hinata scrambled for the lock.

The second he opened the door, Kageyama crammed in the stall with him. He flushed the toilet without looking at the puke inside and unraveled a roll of toilet paper to wipe Hinata’s face with.

Hinata caught Kageyama’s wrist when he saw how hard his hand was shaking. “Wha-“

“What were you _thinking_?” Kageyama asked. His expression had hardened, but Hinata could still see traces of the panic on his face when he spied on him over the stall wall.

Hinata backed away. “I... I dunno,” he stammered. Kageyama looked really _mad._

“You can’t just _make yourself throw up_ , dumbass,” Kageyama said, reaching out to grab Hinata by the shoulder. “And what, you do this all the time or something? This is what you do when you go to the bathroom before games? During practice?”

Hinata blinked. He hadn’t thought he was doing anything wrong, but the way Kageyama was looking at him made him think that maybe he should lie. “No?” he answered.

Kageyama’s face screwed up. “Don’t lie to me,” he said, grabbing Hinata’s hand. He brought it up to Hinata’s face, making him look at it. The back of his knuckles were bleeding. “I’ve known, okay? I knew, but I didn’t-“ For a second, Kageyama looked like _he_ was going to throw up. His jaw clenched. “Stupid Hinata, you can’t make yourself throw up, it’s not good for you.”

Hinata felt his breathing speed up. “Oh,” he answered, tears springing to his eyes.

Kageyama seemed to take pity on him because instead of yelling at him, he swept Hinata up in a hug. Hinata gasped when he suddenly found his cheek smushed into Kageyama’s shoulder. “We have to tell someone,” Kageyama said gruffly, and Hinata shivered. “You _can’t_ make yourself throw up, it’s not good for you,” he repeated.

Hinata’s breath hitched. “ _Okay_ ,” he said, frustrated.

“I’m getting Suga.”

“ _Whatever_ ,” Hinata answered. He didn’t really understand why Kageyama was freaking out or what Suga was going to do.

Kageyama started to separate himself, and Hinata made a whining noise. “Do you wanna come with me?” Kageyama asked, and Hinata shrugged, uncertain. Kageyama blinked at him. “Okay, well, climb on my back. I’ll carry you.”

“’Kay,” Hinata agreed. His voice was scratchy. It hurt to talk too much, but as they passed the sinks, Hinata wrapped his legs tighter around Kageyama and reached out towards the faucets. “Wait, hold on, hold on,” he said. He jumped down and rinsed his mouth out. Nothing was worse than tasting vomit all day. He jumped back onto Kageyama’s back. “All right. Go on,” he said.

Kageyama only grunted, his arms slipping beneath Hinata’s knees. His hair tickled Hinata’s nose. For some reason, it made Hinata feel like crying _so badly._ His hands fisted up in the front of Kageyama’s t-shirt and he hid his face against his neck.

The only sound on the walk to the gym was Hinata’s shaky breathing.

The silence was broken when Kageyama opened the gym door. Squeaking sneakers filled Hinata’s ears, but he didn’t look up. “Suga?” Kageyama asked.

Hinata lifted his head just as Suga turned to look at them. He watched the easy smile fall off of Suga’s face. It was replaced with worry. “One second,” Suga told Daichi before running off the court. He joined Hinata and Kageyama outside and shut the door behind him. “What’s going on?”

Kageyama squirmed, and Hinata swayed as his center of balance changed. He held on a little tighter. Kageyama’s neck grew pink as he struggled for words. “Um... Um...”

“Kageyama followed me to the bathroom,” Hinata squeaked, trying to help out. He was still confused. Kageyama was so upset, and he couldn’t figure out why.

Kageyama nodded. “Right, I followed Hinata,” he started. “And I heard him throwing up, so I looked over the stall, and when I did-“ Kageyama took a big breath of air. “He was _making himself throw up_. Like he had his hand in his mouth.”

Suga’s eyes flickered back and forth between Kageyama and Hinata. Eventually, he landed on Hinata. “What do you mean?” he asked.

Hinata opened his mouth to explain, but Kageyama beat him to it. “He was throwing up on _purpose_ ,” Kageyama said. “And he’s been doing it for a really long time. I know because his face is always swollen, and his voice has been sore, and his nose is drippy which means he’s irritating his sinuses, and he has cuts on the back of his hands from his teeth, and I _looked it up because I was worried_ , and I think he has bulimia, I think he’s really sick.”

Suga’s eyes stayed locked on Hinata’s. “Is that true?” he asked, voice scarily serious.

Hinata swallowed. It hurt. “Um... I don’t know. I don’t know what bulimia is.”

Suga’s expression softened. “Okay,” he said, his quiet voice almost bringing Hinata to tears. “Well, is it true that you make yourself throw up?”

Hinata wriggled uncomfortably, his skinny legs crossing and uncrossing over Kageyama’s stomach as he adjusted himself higher on his shoulders. Kageyama’s back was so broad, Hinata felt like he had to stretch to reach around it. “Sometimes,” he admitted. “Not all the time, though. Just... just when I don’t feel good.”

“See?” Kageyama said, distressed. “See! He’s bulimic!”

Suga put up a placating hand. “Okay. Calm down, calm down,” he said before Kageyama could scream anything else. Suga looked between them again, obviously overwhelmed. “I think... Well, let me just get Daichi.”

* * *

Suga got Daichi, who didn’t know what to do, so Daichi got Takeda. And Takeda was obviously flustered so he got Coach Ukai. And every time the door opened, more and more people turned to stare at Hinata, and Hinata started to realize that throwing up was a bigger deal than he thought it was.

“You know what? Let’s go find a place to sit down. And then we can talk about this,” Coach Ukai said after Hinata explained himself for the fourth time.

“Oh, thank you, I thought my knees were going to give out,” Takeda gushed, and Ukai lifted an eyebrow at him.

“Well, I suggested it so Kageyama could set Hinata down-“ Kageyama’s hold on Hinata strengthened at the same time Hinata managed to wrap his legs impossibly tighter around Kageyama’s torso. “-But as long as you can get us into a classroom or some place private,” Ukai said with a shrug.

Takeda flushed. “Of course, of course,” he said before scurrying in front and letting everyone back into the school building. He fumbled with his keys before opening up the door to one of his classrooms. “Have a seat,” he said, beckoning everyone in.

“Hinata, are you sure you want us all here?” Daichi asked, hand swallowing Hinata’s shoulder.

Hinata shrugged. “I guess. I don’t really know what’s happening, so...”

“Hinata was telling me that he doesn’t know what bulimia is,” Suga explained as he took a seat towards the front of the classroom. Ukai sat on the teacher’s desk at the front, legs dangling over the edge. Meanwhile, Takeda sat nervously on the floor beneath him.

Kageyama dropped Hinata off in the front center seat and ended up sitting behind him. Daichi sat on the opposite side of Hinata as Suga. Belatedly, Hinata realized that he was sitting in a circle of friends.

Takeda straightened up at a potential teaching moment. “Is that true?” he asked.

Hinata squeaked. “I guess.”

Takeda nodded. “Okay, well bulimia is a very serious eating disorder involving binge-eating and self-induced vomiting.”

Hinata’s stomach flip-flopped. “I mean...” He struggled to keep his breathing under control. “I mean, I don’t have an _eating_ disorder. I just throw up.”

“Throw up _what?”_ Daichi asked, and Suga glared at him.

“ _Daichi_ ,” Suga hissed.

Daichi immediately looked sheepish, but Hinata answered anyway. “Dinner at night and sometimes water and lunch at practice,” he answered. Hinata doubled over. He was starting to hyperventilate, and it was making him nauseous. “It’s just throw up, I don’t know.”

“You’re okay, Hinata,” Suga promised, rubbing his arm. “Just take a deep breath.”

Ukai grunted. His arms were crossed over his chest, and he absentmindedly scratched at one of his biceps as he spoke. “Even if I wasn’t worried about your caloric intake –which I am, you need to eat dinner and digest it after long afternoon practices to rebuild your muscles- I would still be worried about your health. Throwing up repeatedly can’t be good for you,” he said.

“It’s not,” Takeda said. “It erodes tooth enamel, it irritates your esophagus. You can cause serious damage to the tissues in your mouth; stomach ulcers and acid reflux are not uncommon. Furthermore, continued vomiting will train your body to get sick more often.” When Takeda realized he had everyone’s individual attention, he pushed up his glasses awkwardly, shoulders curling in. “And, you know, the last thing we want for you is to be more prone to throwing up than you already are.”

Hinata chewed on his bottom lip. “I _have_ been feeling nauseous more often lately,” he admitted. Suga’s hand on his arm was doing little to calm him down.

Takeda looked alarmed to hear it. “Okay, that’s... Well, okay. It’s okay because we’re all talking about it, and we’re going to help you start feeling better.”

“But I don’t feel _bad_ ,” Hinata stressed. “I just throw up.”

Ukai rubbed the back of his neck. “But you _can’t_ throw up,” he said. “It’s dangerous.”

“But-“

“ _No,”_ Ukai interrupted. “It’s _dangerous._ I _just_ talked to you guys about how important eating right is. You need to eat food to replenish the calories you burn during practice.” He cut himself off with a swear. “ _Fuck_. And I _thought_ you were looking skinnier lately. Your muscles are probably eating themselves.”

“My muscles aren’t- they’re not _eating_ themselves,” Hinata squeaked. He sniffled. “I don’t- I mean... Can everyone just stop _yelling_ at me? Everyone is yelling at me,” he said, distraught.

Everyone was quiet for a moment before Suga spoke up. “No one wants to yell at you, Hinata. It’s just... You can’t run on empty,” he said gently. It wasn’t the first time Hinata had heard him say it, but it definitely hit him the hardest. He put his head down on his desk. This was so overwhelming.

His ears started burning when he realized Kageyama was sitting behind him the whole time. Maybe he should have asked for Kageyama to leave. This was humiliating.

“I feel sick,” Hinata said.

Takeda immediately started fussing over him. “Do you need a bucket? Tissues? Water?” he asked, making for the water bottle Ukai had with him.

Hinata shook his head, while Suga rubbed his back in circles. He felt Daichi’s hand on him a moment later, awkwardly resting on his shoulder.

Takeda calmed down when he realized Hinata wasn’t going to start crying or vomiting on the spot. He shuffled through his clipboard and pulled out his sheet of emergency contacts. “Okay. Well, if you’re feeling well enough, I’m going to step out and call your parents to tell them about what we talked about.”

Hinata sat up stick straight. “What? _No_. Don’t call my mom.”

Takeda wavered. “I’m sorry, but it’s school policy,” he said sheepishly. “And your parents need to know what’s going on with you so they can help.”

“But I don’t need help!” Hinata replied. “I told you, I don’t feel bad, it’s just throw up.”

No one said anything.

“Its just _throw up,_ ” Hinata repeated, his eyes watering all over again. Why was everyone so worried? He was still eating. He wasn’t failing school, and excluding the last week or so, he was doing better in volleyball. He’d been a little too dizzy and a little too tired to jump around as much recently, but otherwise, he was _fine._

Takeda winced sympathetically. “Throwing up is a serious matter, Hinata. I’ll be right back.” With that, he left to call Hinata’s parents, and Hinata groaned in frustration. This was turning out to be such a huge deal.

“Are you okay?” Suga asked. Kageyama was still startlingly silent behind him. Hinata’s face screwed up in a frown.

“No,” he answered. “No, I’m not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Real quick in case you all didn't know: Throwing up is really terrible for you. Don't do it. There are other ways to feel in control than an eating disorder. 
> 
> (Just felt like I should make sure everyone knows)


	3. Realization

It was late by the time Hinata finally got to head home.

Ukai had explained to him in excruciating detail how food turned into energy, and why he needed it if he wanted to play volleyball (or otherwise function). Apparently, he had gone to school for sports medicine before dropping out and taking over the family store.

Takeda had gone through all the information he’d learned through his various training courses. Apparently, all of his teachers were equipped to talk to students about eating disorders and set them up with counseling appointments. It had been stressful. Hinata didn’t think he had an eating disorder, and he certainly didn’t think he needed a counselor.

Suga and Daichi, however, had been tremendously supportive. Suga had been so kind, rubbing his back slowly when his breathing picked up. Meanwhile, Daichi kept saying “Give him a minute, give him a minute,” whenever everything started to feel like too much.

Kageyama had stayed silent.

Silent, but present. Even now, he was still with Hinata. Usually, they parted ways at the corner, but they were at least a couple blocks past that now.

Hinata sniffled. “Are you going home?” he asked, rubbing his nose on the back of his jacket sleeve. His face felt puffier than usual from crying. His eyes were swollen into slits.

Kageyama shrugged. “I mean... not yet.”

Hinata made a keening noise at that. He didn’t know if he wanted to be alone or not. On the one hand, he was overwhelmed and didn’t think he could make it the whole way home without crying again. He had already embarrassed himself in front of Kageyama enough today. On the other hand, crying alone was awful, and he didn’t know if he could walk by himself knowing that when he got home he had to face his mother.

His phone already showed twelve missed calls from her.

It took half an hour to ride his bike up the mountain after a full practice. Walking his bike took twice as long, but Hinata and Kageyama still managed to make it over two-thirds of the way to Hinata’s house without talking.

Kageyama just walked next to him with his hands stuffed in his pockets.

Eventually, the quiet grew to be too much for Hinata. “Why are you still here?” he asked. “Don’t you have somewhere else to be?”

“No,” Kageyama answered bluntly. “I wanna make sure you’re okay.”

“Well, of _course_ , I’m okay,” Hinata said, a little hysterical. “Everyone keeps acting like I’m about to jump in front of traffic, or off a bridge, or something. I don’t get why everyone is freaking out.”

“Because it’s _scary,”_ Kageyama said.

Hinata wrinkled his nose. His throat clenched closed as he tried to keep his tears at bay. “But it’s _not_ scary. None of you cared _before_ when I told you about throwing up or went to the bathroom with an upset stomach. Most of you _laughed._ Why does it matter now?”

Kageyama sputtered. “Because now you’re doing it on purpose.” His cheeks turned pink and he turned away. “No one wants to see you hurting yourself, dumbass.”

Hinata quieted at that.

His mouth stayed glued shut the rest of the way home. His knuckles were white around his handlebars, excluding the red fresh scabs on his left hand.

Kageyama dropped him off at his house and watched him go up to his front stop. Hinata turned to face him before opening his door. “You’ll... You’ll be around tomorrow, right?” he asked. He didn’t think he could face the team asking him questions about what had happened that required their captains, coach, _and_ advisor to step out of practice.

Kageyama nodded. “I’ll be around,” he promised. Hinata took a shaky breath.

“Okay,” he said. “See you soon.”

“See you soon,” Kageyama said, unmoving. Hinata ended up having to be the one to break the eye contact as he turned to face the door. He sighed. Now he had to figure out how to talk to his mom.

* * *

“Nii-chan?”

Hinata rolled over on his mattress to face his sister. It wasn’t even eight, and he was already tired enough to fall asleep. His head ached from crying. “What?” he whispered, too exhausted to raise his voice.

“Are you gonna be okay?” Natsu asked. Her eyes shone, even in the dark.

 _No_ , Hinata wanted to answer. Apparently, he had been _hurting_ himself. Everyone was acting like he was one step away from death –even Kageyama had been panicked- and their nerves were starting to rub off on him.

He hadn’t realized what he had been doing was _that_ bad. Honestly, Hinata had thought it was good for him. It was the only thing that made him feel better when he was upset like this, and now he wasn’t allowed to do it anymore.

He didn’t know how long he could hold out without throwing up.

“Takeda said I would be,” he answered, not confident enough to assure Natsu personally.

She wiggled a little closer across the mattress, her toes rubbing up against Hinata’s bare leg. Her feet were warm against his cold skin. “He’s your teacher, right? So he’d know?” she asked.

Hinata pressed his lips together. “I guess. He said that everyone’s going to work together to help me get better.”

Natsu nodded. “Okay.” She rested her head sleepily on his shoulder, and Hinata held his breath. He knew she had been listening to him and his mom talk earlier. It had probably scared her, and that’s why she had begged and begged to sleep in his bed. But Hinata couldn’t comfort her. He was too anxious himself. Meanwhile, Natsu looped her arms around one of Hinata’s. “I’m going to help you get better, too,” she said.

Hinata choked a little. “Thanks,” he squeaked as Natsu fell asleep on his shoulder. He joined her a moment later, nose pressed into her soft hair.

* * *

“Nope,” Ukai said when Hinata showed up to practice the next morning. “You’re benched until further notice, kid. Not until I get word from your counselor and doctor that you’re okay to play.”

Hinata opened his mouth to complain, but the look Ukai threw him shut him up right away. He pressed his hands to his face.

What would happen if he just gave up? If he lay down on the floor, face first?

He was sorely considering it –after all, there was no point in “getting better” if he couldn’t play volleyball- when Kiyoko called him over. “Hinata,” she said, holding up a spare stopwatch.

Hinata blushed, not used to getting attention from Kiyoko. He shuffled over.

“I thought maybe you could help me out today, until you’re able to play again,” she suggested. Hinata took the extra stopwatch out of her hands.

Hinata looked at her accusatorily. “You know, don’t you?”

Kiyoko pushed her glasses up on her nose and flicked her hair out of her eyes in one smooth motion. She didn’t look at him when she spoke, instead choosing to stare at something on her clipboard. “Takeda may have accidentally let something slip this morning. He’s clumsy. With his actions and with his words.”

Hinata sighed. “Great. That’s... That’s great.” He looked at the ball cart longingly. He felt awful. His entire body felt sluggish from crying the whole day before, and his joints still felt achy and shaky. Normally, he would throw up to make himself feel better or play volleyball to distract himself, but apparently, he wasn’t allowed to do either of those things anymore.

Kiyoko tucked her hair behind her ear. She seemed hesitant for a moment before speaking. “I think... I think Coach Ukai is worried. He wants to make sure you’re healthy enough to play without over-exerting yourself, and maybe he feels personally responsible for you’re...” she trailed off awkwardly.

Hinata looked up at her. “Personally responsible?” he asked before she could find an end to her sentence.

“Well, sure,” Kiyoko said. “We all see you everyday. We should have noticed sooner, especially when you weren’t doing much to hide it.”

Hinata grimaced. His mom had said something similar about wishing she had seen it sooner. Kageyama had mentioned that he had figured it out before everyone else, but he had cut himself off before he could say anything more about it.

“I mean... It didn’t start with _making_ myself throw up, you know? I think that threw people off.”

Kiyoko stared at him. “Yeah.”

Practice started up without Hinata. He watched anxiously from the sidelines as everyone did warm ups and drills without him. Kiyoko was as quiet as ever. She scratched notes on her clipboard every now and then, but otherwise she was completely focused on the players.

Hinata figured she had forgotten about him until she spoke up. Her lip twitched, like she was warring with herself over whether or not she should say what she was thinking. “I just... I want you to know I get it,” she said.

Hinata leaned forward on the bench to get a better look at her. “What does that mean?”

“Just that... Well, sometimes, when life gets away from you, it’s nice to have control over one thing, you know? And food is an easy thing to control, at least for me. So... so whatever kind of control you feel after throwing up, I used to feel that way by skipping meals.”

“You don’t eat?” he yelped.

“Now I do. But I didn’t in middle school,” she answered.

Hinata marveled over that for a minute. Kiyoko was the most put together person he knew. The fact that she could feel as crazy and overwhelmed as he did was mind-boggling.

She seemed to sense his trouble grasping things because she spoke up again. “I swear, I used to be ten centimeters shorter and at least 15 kilograms heavier,” she said. “My mom realized when my uniform got too big.”

Hinata looked at Kiyoko, unsure how such a little person could possibly fit into a larger frame. He gulped, searching for the right words.

His eyes fell on her face. She really was beautiful. Maybe it was a dumb thing to point out, but he felt like it needed to be said. “Kiyoko, you’re very pretty. You would look beautiful no matter what size you were,” he promised.

Kiyoko offered him a small smile. “Thank you. But it’s not really about that. Or... it wasn’t at first, anyway.”

Hinata looked down at his own body. “Yeah,” he agreed.

Kiyoko cleared her throat. (Somehow, she managed to make it sound pretty.) “But, you know, I only bring it up to let you know that you can talk to me, okay? Counseling can feel scary at first, and there’s going to be a lot of people who don’t really get it _acting_ like they get it, which is... frustrating. But it’s a manager’s job to make sure everyone on the team is healthy and happy, and as someone who roughly knows what you’re going through, please feel free to come to me and I will support you.”

Hinata marveled up at Kiyoko. It was the most words he had ever heard her say at once. A small part of him wanted to brag to Tanaka and Nishinoya that Kiyoko had reached out to him, but he didn’t want to spoil something so genuine. Kiyoko had been so sincere as she spoke. Hinata didn’t want to dirty it up by boasting about it.

Flustered, he stood up into a low bow. “Thank you, Kiyoko-san,” he said, staring straight down at her shoes. She nudged him out of his bow.

“No problem,” she replied. “What are friends for?”

* * *

Hinata slurped down noodles, crossing his eyes to stare at each one as it slipped through his chopsticks. He used to cram his food into his mouth, but lately he’d been eating more slowly: one noodle at a time.

“Wah, Hinata, your mom always packs you such good food. I’m so jealous,” Yamaguchi complained.

Hinata blinked down at his thermos. His mom _had_ been making him good lunches lately. She didn’t want him making his own food if he was going to specifically choose things that were easy to throw up, and after Hinata’s doctor had lectured him and his mom for over an hour on proper nutrition, she had been very particular about what he ate.

It was a sore subject to talk about. Most of the team still didn’t know why Hinata had to sit out for a week or why Ukai, Takeda, Suga, and Daichi had all left practice to talk to him. However, Tsukishima was as observant as ever, and he elbowed Yamaguchi in the ribs.

Yamaguchi pouted. “Wha-“

“Shut up,” Tsukishima said, stabbing at his hamburger with his chopsticks.

Yamaguchi winced but let the subject drop. “Sorry, Tsukki.”

Tsukishima didn’t seem bothered. “Where’s the King today, Hinata?” he asked, helping to get the focus off of Hinata’s food. Hinata wondered how much of it was purposeful, and how much of it was a happy coincident.

“Honestly? Probably in line at the vending machine, still,” Hinata answered. Kageyama had said he would come down to the courtyard for lunch today. “That, or a teacher held him up.”

Tsukishima looked up, his glasses catching the light. “Speak of the Devil, here he comes now,” he said, just as Kageyama snuck up behind Hinata. He sat cross-legged in the grass, filling in their little circle. Tsukishima stared pointedly at the two milk boxes in his hands. “So predictable,” he snorted.

Kageyama looked affronted. “What?” he asked, wordlessly passing a milk box to Hinata.

Tsukishima smirked. “Nothing.”

“Okay, well if you’re done being weird,” Kageyama started, reaching for his backpack. He pulled out his notebook and flipped it open to the first page. “Can you help me with this problem?”

Tsukishima crinkled his nose. “I’ve explained this to you, like, seven times already,” he complained. He crossed his arms over his chest, but Yamaguchi rested a hand on his shoulder before he could completely close himself off.

“Come on, Tsukki. I won’t hurt you to explain it one more time,” Yamaguchi said.

Tsukishima sighed. “Fine,” he agreed. He slipped a pencil out from behind his ear and grabbed Kageyama’s notebook. Yamaguchi beamed as Tsukishima started to re-explain the problem to Kageyama.

Yamaguchi leaned in and whispered to Hinata just loud enough for Tsukishima to hear. “They’re making friends. It’s so cute!”

Tsukishima threw a tomato at the back of Yamaguchi’s head, not once looking up from Kageyama’s homework. Hinata laughed at the startled expression on Yamaguchi’s face.

“When are you going to learn to stop pushing Tsukishima’s buttons?” Hinata asked, still laughing a little as Yamaguchi fixed his hair. “He’s too violent.”

Yamaguchi winced.

The rest of their lunch period passed by uneventfully. Kageyama stayed close to Hinata, their knees brushing every time Kageyama leaned over to get a better look at the problem Tsukishima was explaining. Hinata found himself staring at the spot their legs met up for most of lunch.

“Okay, I have to get going,” Yamaguchi said, interrupting the conversation as he stood up. “I wanted to ask my teacher a couple things before class. Tsukki, you wanna come with me?” he asked.

Tsukishima groaned, like Yamaguchi had asked him to run a marathon instead of walk him to class. However, he stood up almost immediately. “I _guess_ ,” he agreed. He swung his bag over his shoulder. “See you guys later.”

“See you!” Hinata chirped. Kageyama waved while Hinata went back to his noodles. He still hadn’t finished his lunch yet –only about half- but it was hard to eat as much as usual when he wasn’t allowed to throw some of it up to get some of it out of his system.

Kageyama seemed to sense his thoughts because he turned to watch as Hinata sucked up another noodle, the end of it wiggling and flicking broth everywhere as he slurped it.

Fortunately, Yamaguchi and Tsukishima were already out of hearing distance when Kageyama blurted out: “You’re not going to throw that up, right?”

Hinata choked. He beat his chest as he tried to catch his breath. Kageyama smacked his back to help him out. “S- sorry,” he apologized. Kageyama had really caught him off guard. “But, no, of course not. I’m not going to throw it up,” he promised.

“Okay,” Kageyama said. He shifted his weight from side to side for a moment. He seemed hesitant, and Hinata leaned away from him. Kageyama certainly knew how to make him nervous. Hinata stabbed at his noodles, while Kageyama cleared his throat next to him. “Okay, because I like your body as it is, not any thinner.”

Hinata nearly dropped his thermos. “ _What?_ ”

Kageyama made a whining noise in the back of his throat. “You shouldn’t worry about being skinny,” he said, frustrated. “You’ve always been skinny. Your legs are... _so_ skinny. But I think you look nice no matter what, so don’t worry about getting thinner.”

“I’m... I’m not trying to get _thinner_ ,” Hinata said, eyes widening.

Kageyama set his jaw. “That’s good because you shouldn’t,” he said, the words coming out all in a rush.

Hinata put a hand on top of Kageyama’s, blades of grass managing to push up through the gaps between their fingers. “I’ve _never_ been trying to get thinner, stupid,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not _worried_ about it.”

“You’re _totally_ worried about it,” Hinata argued. He was blushing, but Kageyama was blushing, too. “But it’s not like that. It’s just... It’s just _throw up_ , I don’t know. I don’t think it’s an eating disorder like everyone says.”

“Okay,” Kageyama answered, although he didn’t look convinced. Hinata finished screwing up his thermos and tossed it into his bag. He stood up and reached a hand out to Kageyama to help him off the ground.

“Let’s just go to class, okay?” he asked. “Can we just go to class?”

“Sure,” Kageyama asked. He seemed paler than usual: washed out. Hinata didn’t know how to perk him up. Every time he talked to Kageyama lately, his half of the conversation seemed nervous and awkward. Hinata was tired of seeing Kageyama so sad.

He didn’t let go of Kageyama’s hand as they walked to class. He knew it wasn’t enough to reassure Kageyama that he was okay, but maybe it would cheer him up a little bit.

* * *

In addition to acting weird and shy lately, Kageyama had also been hovering a lot more than usual. It was a little weird during practice (Kageyama always had to make excuses to come see Hinata on the sidelines), but there were other times that Hinata really appreciated it.

Like now.

Every night like clockwork, Hinata could count on Kageyama calling right after dinner. Hinata hardly had time to get showered and in his pajamas before his phone started ringing.

Tonight, Hinata was running a little bit behind schedule, and he picked up his phone while he was still wrapped up in his towel. “Ah, moshi, moshi,” he said all in one breath, combing his damp hair out of his eyes. His skin was still pink from the bath.

“Hey,” Kageyama greeted. “What’s up? Did you eat?”

Hinata huffed out a sigh. “Yeah, quit asking.”

There was rustling over the line before Kageyama seemed to settle back. “Okay,” he said. “.... So practice was good today.”

Hinata smirked. “Yeah,” he agreed. Kageyama was so awkward on the phone, but it was good of him to call. Ever since he had confessed to throwing up dinner on a regular basis, Kageyama always called him after eating. Hinata knew he was worried. Normally, people fussing over him drove him crazy, but Hinata wasn’t sure how he would get to sleep without talking to Kageyama to get through the evening (not that he would ever admit it).

“Your serving is getting better.”

“It is.”

“Your receives still suck, though.”

Hinata laughed. “Shut up, Kageyama. You’re such a dweeb.”

“Whatever,” Kageyama muttered, and Hinata imagined he was probably blushing and hiding his face behind his hand. He could see his ears turning pink like Kageyama was right in front of him. “... So you ate dinner?”

Hinata groaned. “Kageyama, you _know_ my mom. Do you actually think she ever would have let me skip eating?” His mom’s nutrition kick included perfect portions and balanced meals. If he left even a single bite on his plate, she noticed. She kept talking about how skinny he was and how starved his muscles were. The doctors kept talking about it, too.

Hinata rubbed at his ribs self-consciously as he searched his drawers for a t-shirt to sleep in.

“... No. She’s pretty tenacious.”

“Well, only about some things,” Hinata said, stepping into a pair of boxers. He forced one of his dad’s XL t-shirts over his head. “Guess who gets to play video games on Saturday morning instead of getting up early to help her do laundry.”

“You?” Kageyama asked.

“Yep,” Hinata answered, the bottom hem of his shirt dropping around his knees. “Mom says I don’t need any added stressors in my life right now: chores included.”

Kageyama hummed. “Do chores really stress you out?” he asked.

Hinata climbed into bed. He looked down at his covers. “Um... Well, no, not really,” he said, his scrawny legs slipping under the sheets. He hadn’t finished his homework yet, but he was too tired to think anymore. He hadn’t felt awake since before he started throwing up. “Chores aren’t so bad. Everything else is though.”

“Like what?” Kageyama asked.

Hinata huffed out a sigh as his head hit the pillow. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Like... school?” He really _should_ finish his homework. “And practice and stuff. Just everything.”

Kageyama was quiet for a minute. “I don’t really get it.”

“That’s okay,” Hinata said. “Actually... Actually, can we not talk about it? I’m really tired, ‘Yama, I’d rather talk about something silly, not serious.”

“... Um...”

Hinata snuggled a little further into his sheets. “Like maybe we could talk about Nishinoya tripping on that volleyball,” he suggested.

Kageyama snorted at that, finally loosening up. “Oh my gosh, he fell into a _split_ ,” he remembered. Hinata kicked his feet back and forth excitedly.

“It must have hurt _so bad_ ,” he giggled, rolling onto his side. His pillow was a little damp from his hair, but his covers were warm and so was Kageyama’s voice.

“I’ve never seen his eyes look so big.”

“They practically took up his whole face,” Hinata agreed, smiling. The bath had taken all of the tenseness out of his muscles, and for once, he felt relaxed. He closed his eyes, even if it was still early. “I can’t remember the last time I’ve laughed that hard.”

“Yeah,” Kageyama agreed. “... What are you doing now?”

“I’m in bed,” Hinata answered. He buried his nose into his comforter. “You know, sometimes I don’t realize how cold it is until I have blankets on me.”

Kageyama laughed over the line.

“What?” Hinata asked.

“Nothing.”

“What?!” Hinata asked again.

“Nothing, nothing,” Kageyama promised. His next words were so quiet; Hinata almost didn’t hear them. “You just sounded cute is all.”

Hinata felt his heart swell in his chest. “Sh-Shut up!” he yelped. He hid his head under his blanket. “You’re such a dork. I’m done. I’m hanging up.”

“Fine. See if I care.”

Hinata paused. He didn’t actually want to hang up the phone at all. Talking to Kageyama was calming (except for when he said things that made his heart start racing). Honestly, he would have rather had Kageyama with him in his room, but if he couldn’t have that, then a phone call would have to be enough. “Okay, I’m not hanging up,” he admitted. “But I still think you’re dorky.”

Kageyama made a disgruntled noise. “That’s fine. I think _you’re_ annoying.”

“No you don’t,” Hinata bristled.

Kageyama snorted. “No... I don’t.”

* * *

Hinata held out his pinny, grinning excitedly down at his practice clothes. He was so excited to play volleyball again and at a practice camp no less. Even if they lost every game, Hinata was just excited to get to play. He had liked learning with Coach Ukai senior, but this was different. This was _real_.

This was what Hinata needed.

Getting to play volleyball again was like a breath of fresh air. For once, he didn’t have to think about throw up, or eating, or doctors, or counselors, or _anything_. All he had to think about was reacting and the feel of the ball against his palm.

All he had to do now was click with Kageyama on the court as well as he did _off_ the court, and he would be back in business.

“Hinata.”

Hinata looked up to see Kiyoko beckoning him to the sidelines after a particularly tough set. She was holding his water bottle out to him, and Hinata bounded over. “Hey, thanks!” he said excitedly. He held the bottle with both hands as he took a long drink.

“No problem,” Kiyoko said. She let him drink for a minute before checking up on him. “How are you feeling? Are you okay?”

Hinata nodded happily, wiping his mouth off on the back of his arm. “Yep!”

“No shaky knees? No spotty vision?”

“Nope! I feel really good! This is so exciting! I’m so excited!” he yelped, jumping in place a couple times. Kiyoko hid her smile behind her hand before throwing her head back and laughing. She looked as beautiful as ever.

Her ponytail slipped off her shoulder, and all of a sudden, Hinata felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. He stopped jumping and turned around, only to realize that the _entire gym_ was staring at him. Or more like, they were staring at Kiyoko with her long neck and longer hair and _glaring_ at Hinata for standing next to her.

“Ah~ah,” he tittered uncomfortably, moving to duck behind Kiyoko’s shoulder. However, before he was able to hide himself, Tanaka and Nishinoya framed him on either side, their eyes blazing.

“Hinata,” Nishinoya greeted, his tone forced.

Tanaka threw an arm around his shoulders. A menacing smile took up his entire face. “What’s so _funny?”_ he questioned.

Kiyoko had gone from laughing to annoyed. “Calm down, there’s no reason to be jealous,” she said bluntly. She grabbed Hinata’s arm and pulled him forward. “Just let him go.” She pushed lightly at Tanaka’s chest, and Tanaka immediately took a knee.

“Yuu... _Yuu_. She _touched me_ ,” he gasped.

“I saw, man, I _saw_ ,” Nishinoya exclaimed.

Hinata shuddered. That had been way too scary. He was going to have to be careful about talking to Kiyoko in front of his teammates; their jealousy wasn’t worth it.

Kiyoko delicately lead him away, her hand gentle on his lower back as she brought him further off onto the sideline. “And you’re sure you’re alright?” she asked one more time. “I know it must be hard, just getting back into the swing of things. If you need a break, or a snack, or some water, I can arrange whatever you need.”

“I’m okay right now,” Hinata said. He never felt tired during volleyball; he could go forever. However, knowing that Kiyoko had his back made him feel a little bit better about everything. It wiped away nerves he hadn’t even realized he had.

* * *

Hinata startled when his plate moved closer to him without his touching it. He sat up straight. Kageyama, meanwhile, nudged his dinner a little closer to him.

“What?” he asked, dazed. He had _completely_ spaced out.

“You’re not eating,” Kageyama pointed out. He was sitting across the table from him, and even though he was leaning forward and his voice was low, Suga still picked up on their conversation. He turned.

“Is everything okay?” Suga asked, getting Daichi’s attention at well. Fortunately, everyone else seemed relatively oblivious.

Hinata squirmed, feeling flustered. He’d gone from daydreaming to scrutiny. “Um...” he wavered, uncertain. “I think I’m okay. Just... nervous.”

“Yeah?” Suga asked. He was seated diagonally from him, but he might as well have been right next to him. Suga’s eyes were so warm and inviting. Every time Hinata looked at him, he felt like he was wrapped up in a hug. “About what?”

Hinata shrugged awkwardly.

Daichi frowned. “Is it about our games today?” he asked.

Hinata shrunk down a little bit. He had thought it would be enough just to play volleyball again. But he and Kageyama weren’t clicking like they usually did, and they had lost _every game they played so far._

Maybe if their quick were working properly they’d be winning. Hinata knew he wasn’t supposed to blame himself for the faults of the team, but it was hard not to feel personally responsible. He _knew_ he could play better. He and Kageyama had always been good together, and now he was screwing that up.

Suga sighed. “Hinata,” he cooed.

 _“Hinata,_ ” Kageyama growled. “Dumbass, quit being stressed about volleyball. It’s supposed to be fun.” Suga put a hand on Kageyama’s forearm to simmer him down. Kageyama shook him off. “You don’t have to feel bad about it!”

“I’m just not...” he grimaced, not sure how to voice his feelings. He had never been great at vocalizing the things that stressed him out. “I’m not doing well? And we’re losing, so-“

“So, it’s _practice_ ,” Kageyama interrupted. “We’re _practicing_ so we won’t lose the _real_ games.”

Hinata huffed. His fish stared back at him on his plate, and he was suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to shove all his food down his throat just to immediately throw it back up all over the table. He didn’t care what anyone said, throwing up felt good to him. He _needed_ it. Without it, all the stress of the lost games was just building up and building up.

Daichi cleared his throat. “Kageyama is right ...sort of. The team is in a period of growth right now. We’re trying new things; we’re learning new tricks. Maybe it’s not flowing and connecting the way we’re used to, but we’re getting there. We’re all working on changing, it’s okay that we’re losing,” he promised.

“But I’m... I’m changing the most, I can’t-“ This time Hinata cut himself off. He dug his palms into his eye sockets.

Suga made another cooing noise. His hands layered over Hinata’s, carefully pulling them away from his eyes. “It’s okay, Hinata, you’re okay. Why don’t you just try to focus on eating now?”

“You need to eat,” Kageyama said scathingly, and Suga shushed him.

“Shhh, just calm down,” Suga said before turning back to Hinata. “Just try to eat a little something, okay? You’ve gotta have dinner; you’ve been running around all day.”

“You can’t run on empty,” Hinata regurgitated, remembering what Suga always said. He had mentioned it to his counselor, and she had brought it up in every session since.

Suga smiled at him encouragingly. “No, you can’t,” he agreed.

Hinata picked up his chopsticks and glared down at his food. Even if he couldn’t finish it, he could at least try. Daichi clapped him on the shoulder, and Hinata took a shaky breath. He picked at his fish, watching it flake apart.

As he pecked at his food, he could feel Coach Ukai’s gaze on him from across the room. Great. The last thing he needed was for everyone to realize he was still having trouble with eating and throwing up.

* * *

He managed to make it out of practice camp without another lecture about eating. He had done his best to look like he was at least _trying_ to eat. He had succeeded in avoiding any more awkward conversations, even if he hadn’t succeeded in eating anything.

He thought he had managed to make it out of practice camp scot-free. After all, finally figuring out his quick with Kageyama had been a big distraction. It had even tricked _Hinata_ into thinking he was feeling better.

But upon walking into practice on Monday morning and seeing the look on Ukai’s face, Hinata realized he had been sorely mistaken.

“Okay, boys. Huddle around. We’re going to talk really quick before we get to stretching and warming up.”

Hinata’s feet stayed glued in the entryway. Ennoshita nudged him in. “Hey, come on, dumbass,” Ennoshita said fondly, mimicking Kageyama as he walked through the door. “Let’s go.”

Hinata gulped and followed him in. He could feel Ukai’s eyes trailing him, and he saw the notecards on his clipboard. He _knew_ this was about him –somehow- but he couldn’t explain the anxiety bubbling up in his throat.

He managed to sit down next to Ennoshita on wobbly legs.

It took a few minutes for everyone to sit down (AKA: just enough time for Hinata to freak himself out). He was jittery from his head to his toes by the time Ukai finally cleared his throat to address the team.

“Right, so. I only get to see you guys for a few hours each day, and while I get to talk to you a lot about how to physically take care of your bodies to be at the top of your game, I never get to talk to you about how to take care of yourselves nutritionally,” Ukai began.

Hinata’s stomach lurched. He bent over, nausea sweeping over him. He couldn’t listen to another conversation about eating. Everyone had something to say about it, and everyone’s advice was different. His mom had taken on most of the brunt of figuring out his diet, but it was still overwhelming.

How was he supposed to know what to do when everyone said something different?

“As athletes,” Ukai continued, “it’s important that you understand that what you eat directly effects your performance.”

Tanaka groaned. “Listen, is this because I ate that whole gallon of ice cream after practice last week? Because that was a one time thing.”

The corner of Ukai’s mouth twitched upwards. “No,” he answered. “Or, well, actually, that’s disgusting. Don’t do that. But I wanted to talk to you about eating the right things and eating _enough_. Because eating too little is just as bad for your body as eating too much. So! That being said-“ Ukai dragged over a blackboard and flipped it to show some diagrams he had already drawn on it. The team groaned. “Let’s talk proteins.”

Ukai started on his diatribe, and Hinata felt his heartbeat continue to speed up. It’s like his heart thought he was trying to run a marathon, not just listen to a stupid lecture from his coach.

Maybe he would feel better if it wasn’t so obviously directed at him. But Ukai kept making eye contact with him, no matter which way he turned, and he knew this was about how difficult it had been for him to eat at practice camp. It wasn’t fair. Practice camp had been hard emotionally and schedule-wise when it came to eating. At home, his mom let him have as long as he needed to finish a meal, but he couldn’t sit at the table all night in the lodge.

Just thinking about eating a lot too quickly made him feel sick. He rocked back and forth as his nausea worsened. Hinata knew he was freaking out. And what’s more, he knew he _looked_ like he was freaking out. He could feel the team’s eyes on him as he ducked his head between his knees and hyperventilated.

“... So without the proper balance of carbohydrates, sugars, and proteins- or, I’m sorry, Hinata, are you okay?” Ukai asked, cutting himself off to check up on him.

Hinata was _so sick_ of people asking if he was okay. He shook off Ennoshita’s hand when the second year tried to rub his back. “I just... I need to go to the bathroom.”

Ukai looked nervous. “Hinata-“

“I’m going to the bathroom,” Hinata said frantically, leaving no room for discussion. He got up and rushed off. He didn’t care what Ukai, or Takeda, or Kageyama, or Suga, or Daichi, or... or... or... or what _anyone_ thought. He had been so good at not throwing up for so long, and for what? For other people? So they could feel good about how he was treating himself and what he was doing to his body? Who cared about how _they_ felt? What about Hinata? What about how awful and stressed _he_ felt? Didn’t that matter?

Hinata threw himself into the bathroom, but he hadn’t managed to run off alone. Before he could make it into a stall, Kageyama grabbed his arm. “Kageyama, what the hell?” he asked, struggling to get away. Kageyama’s hand wrapped fully around his wrist. “Let go!”

“Stop fighting me,” Kageyama demanded, just before Hinata elbowed him in the ribs. “Ow, geez, quit it! Relax.”

“No! Let go, let-“ Kageyama hugged Hinata from behind, trapping his arms at his sides, “go! Let, _go!_ ”

“Not until you relax!” Kageyama shouted. If Hinata were any less panicked, he would have been able to hear the fear in his voice. “Just _calm down._ Relax, Hinata. _Relax._ Relax.” Hinata twisted, trying to find a way out of Kageyama’s hold, but he was too big, and Hinata was too small.

When he realized it was hopeless, he started to melt. He fell back against Kageyama, his whole body limp with sorrow, and dread, and nausea. He needed to throw up, solely for the sake of throwing up. He had to puke so badly that he lurched in Kageyama’s arms, gagging on air as his stomach swirled. He was about to throw up on the ground just because he was _nervous._

“I... I have a problem,” he realized. His eyes felt like they were about to bug out of his head.

“Well, yeah, dumbass, you’re freaking out. Just calm down,” Kageyama said.

“No, _no_ ,” Hinata said, big crocodile tears beading up in his eyes and slipping down his face. “No, I have a _problem_. This is a _problem_. I can’t keep doing this.”

Kageyama’s hold on him strengthened when Hinata’s knees and hips all but gave out beneath him. Hinata buried his nose in Kageyama’s arm, sobbing, and Kageyama seemed to realize that something was wrong other than Hinata just wanting to throw up. He leaned back and helped them slide down to the floor. Hinata cried in Kageyama’s lap. “Hey... hey, you’re okay,” Kageyama said weakly, all trace of anger out of his voice.

“I’m not, though. I have a _problem_ ,” Hinata wept, hugging onto Kageyama’s arms with his own. Kageyama hadn’t stopped holding him, even for a moment.

“But it’s okay. You’re working on it.”

“Not enough,” Hinata argued. He was glad he wasn’t facing Kageyama right now. “Who does his? Who throws up like this? Why did I think this was okay? I’m... I’m _dying_.”

“You’re not dying.”

“I’m _dying_.”

“No, you’re just... you’re just... you’re just confused,” Kageyama promised. “Throwing up _is_ bad, and it _is_ a problem, but it _is_ just throwing up. You’re not dying, you can overcome this.”

Hinata hiccupped on his tears. “I just want to play volleyball.”

“I know.”

“I want to do it _well_.”

“I know.”

“I want to do _everything_ well, but I _can’t_. I’m so bad at everything, ‘Yama. I keep messing up, no matter how hard I try. I don’t... I don’t have any _control_. I mess everything up,” he managed to stammer out.

Kageyama snuggled him closer, his nose ending up in the crook of Hinata’s neck. Hinata closed his eyes. It was still so early in the morning; he never truly woke up until practice officially started, and he was _so_ exhausted. “You don’t mess everything up. You’re great, Hinata. You are. You just have to work on _feeling_ great.”

Hinata gasped as he tried to take in a breath of air. He dipped his head further into Kageyama’s arm. “Okay... Okay, I’ll work on it.”

“You’ll work on it?”

“Yeah,” Hinata agreed. He whimpered. “Because... because this is a _problem_ , Kageyama. It’s a problem.”

Kageyama nodded. “It is a problem,” he agreed. “But when has there ever been a problem we can’t face?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so here is the deal. 
> 
> This fic isn't my best and I know that. But frankly, as someone who spent most of high school with an eating disorder and is still feeling the effects now, I found this very oppressive to write. Like it's too triggering, and I don't want to spend any more time on it. 
> 
> That being said, I think it would be really great if there was more to this universe. I really want Hinata to get better and for him and Kageyama to end up together (because it certainly looks like that will happen) and more Natsu, and Suga, and Daichi being a dumb, confused dad, and like... Ukai and Takeda worrying, and stuff about Kiyoko...
> 
> There are just so many ways for this to go. 
> 
> SO I am opening this up, and actively encouraging anyone who reads this and likes writing to write anything they want in this universe. Honestly, write whatever you want, and I'll read it and love it, like anything else in this AU would be SO GREAT, I just can't be the one who writes it. 
> 
> If no one wants to, no biggie, but I just wanted to give everyone the option! (It sucks when things kind of stop short, and I know this did, so I want to let everyone explore the universe through writing if they want to, you feel? Like seriously, you don't even have to talk to me about it, just write whatever you want and say it's in this universe, it's all fair game)

**Author's Note:**

> Just another few notes: 
> 
> 1) This is pre-slash, so Kagehina won't actually get together in this, just sort of start dancing around each other. I didn't want to romanticize Hinata's eating disorder, and like... this isn't really about romance anyway. 
> 
> 2) I have most of this written! So I should update it weekly. Or faster. Idk, depends how I feel. 
> 
> 3) Thank you so much for reading! You can find me at [ @thecheekybrunette](thecheekybrunette.tumblr.com) on tumblr if you want to chat about this, or any upcoming works, or whatever. I think I am doing a quick epilogue to Twitch next. (That or a Kuroken, idk.)


End file.
